Keeping children busy on a journey: car, train and plane

Here are ideas that many families rely on, sorted by stage of the journey rather than by age, because a wriggling three-year-old and a bored ten-year-old often need something at the same moment.

Before you leave: pack the boredom bag

Most of a good journey happens before it starts. A small bag per child, packed the night before, with things that come out one at a time.

• A new (or newly borrowed) book, a comic, a sticker book, a magazine.
• A small notebook and a pencil case: for drawing, noughts and crosses, hangman, a travel diary.
• A couple of small toys that have been hidden away for a month.
• Snacks that are boring enough not to be eaten in the first ten minutes.
• Headphones for each child, and something to listen to.

Download everything before you leave. Signal disappears exactly when you need it.

The first hour: games with no equipment

• I spy, with colours for the youngest and letters for the older ones.
• Twenty questions: animal, vegetable or mineral.
• Spotting games: a red lorry, a tractor, a horse, a church. One point each.
• A story told round the car, one sentence each, which goes somewhere silly very fast.
• Counting bridges, tunnels, roundabouts. Ellie, aged five, can keep this going for an unreasonably long time.

Open a real example book before you leave and read it on the way

The middle stretch: stories and listening

Once the games have run out, a story is the thing most likely to settle a car or a carriage. Audiobooks suit everyone from three upwards, and a long one can last a whole holiday. The same chapter for a mixed-age car is a nice shared thing, even if the oldest pretends not to listen.

A personalised book can be part of the kit too. With AI-Koma Kids, your child chooses a hero, a world and an adventure in pictures before you leave, perhaps a journey or a treasure hunt, and the illustrated book is ready a few minutes later in your library, to read on a tablet or phone. On the way, a voice generated by artificial intelligence can read each page, with headphones, and stops until your child turns the page. The PDF can also be printed and put in the bag as a paper book, which has no battery to run out. It is one idea among others, and one that works best when the book was made before the journey rather than during it.

Make a free first book before the trip, with the adventure they choose

When it all goes wrong

Every long journey has a point where it falls apart: the motorway stops, the flight is delayed, the three-year-old has had enough. A few tricks for that moment.

• Stop if you can. Fifteen minutes running around a service-station car park changes everything.
• The emergency snack, kept back for exactly this.
• The emergency toy or sticker book, kept back for exactly this.
• Changing seats, if that is possible: new view, new neighbour.
• Lowering the bar. A screen for the last hour is not a defeat; it is a plan.

Train and plane: a few specifics

• On a train: the window seat, the table, a walk to see the buffet car. Trains are an activity in themselves for a small child.
• On a plane: something new for take-off, something to suck or chew for the ears, and a small surprise every hour of a long flight.
• In both: a bag that fits under the seat with everything you will need in the first hour, so that you are not opening the big one in the aisle.

For ideas by age once you have arrived, see our article on rainy day activities, which works just as well for a holiday cottage with no Wi-Fi.

A book or two for every trip: see the plans, from €5.99 a month